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Don’t encourage the SyFy Channel

When the Sci-Fi Channel first came into existence, they gave hope to millions of sci-fi/fantasy geeks everywhere. They never really lived up to what we all had hoped they’d become, a channel devoted to quality speculative fiction both in reruns and as new content.

Well, they do have some pretty decent television shows, such as “Warehouse 13,” “Defiance,” but they still broadcast the most gawdawful schlock movies ever created.

Aside from the bad “cash in on the latest Box office smash” that’s brought us movies like “Almighty Thor,” “A Princess of Mars,” and “War of the Worlds” (which actually, without Tom Cruise or that screaming girl, wasn’t a bad movie), they keep bringing us movies about giant alligators, mutant octopus-shark creatures, with titles like “Frankenfish,” “Piranhaconda,” “Dinogator,” and “Dinoshark.”

Movies as bad as their titles and premises promise.

But their most recent movie, last Thursday’s “Sharknado” in which a tornado picks up an ocean of sharks and drops them on Tara Reid, set the Twitterverse on fire. There were 300,000 plus tweets about that movie, at its peak averaging 5k tweets a minute.

Stop it. Just. Stop.

Think about what you did.

Only about 1.4 million people tuned in, about an average night for a sci-fi schlock night. In fact, it ranked 38th for all programming that night on television. SyFy probably wouldn’t even have noticed.

But the fact that a quarter of those people made #sharknado the top trending topic did capture SyFy’s attention.

And now they feel vindicated in bringing us crap. In fact, you’ve encouraged them to produce and air more crap.

I hope you’re happy. You have no one to blame but yourselves as SyFy continues to produce mutated shark-like, tentacled, snake-things meet the weather disaster of the week. Soon there will be tsunamis throwing wave after wave of giant piranha at us. Floods filled with flesh-sucking electric lampreys pulling us under. Maybe even “Sharks on a Plane” featuring a Samuel Jackson lookalike yelling, “I’m sick of these mothertrucking sharks!”

If we’d just ignored them, maybe they would have been forced to throw quality at us. A well-written and directed adaptation of Larry Niven’s “Ringworld,” or even bringing Michael Moorcock’s Elric to life.

But no. Now they’re all excited, ringing their hands together, laughing maniacally at the thought that they can make money hand over fist producing the cheapest, crappiest movies ever.

“Sharknado,” for those of you who missed it, myself included, is going to be rebroadcast this Thursday, July 18th, at 7pm EST.

Yes, OK, I’m going to DVR it. But I am not going to tweet about it.

And their next potential social media hit?

“Ghost Shark.”

I warned you.

-30-

17july2013: See? I warned you, didn’t I? You have no one to blame but yourselves. Today SyFy has green lighted the sequel, Sharknado 2. Instead of splashing down in LA, this time around New York gets the toothy greeting.

And best, or worst of all, depending on your perspective, SyFy is going to let us name the sequel! Aren’t you all goose-pimply? Just tweet your suggested name to @SyfyMovies with the hash tag #sharknado. The best suggestion will become the sequel’s official name.